Some of the teamsters would have liked to mingle with the trappers and to rehearse what had been done, and what had not been done, and what might have been done, in the short fight; but “Catch up! Ketch up!” and “Fall in, men!” rang the sharp orders of the caravan officers. Time had been lost, water was dwindling, every moment was precious; the march must proceed at once.
So team after team settled to collar and yoke, wagon after wagon lurched forward; and presently little Oliver was once more in the rear of all, driving his cavvy through the drifting dust. Strangely enough, not a man of caravan or trappers had been wounded, and only one mule had received an arrow, in the hip.
“Wall, boy, how’d you like the Kiowas?” It was Sol Silver, again, back beside Oliver. Brown-bearded and burly, he looked the same as ever and as if he had not been in any fight. But tucked in his belt were two scalps. “Whar’s yore pelts for trophies?”
“I haven’t any. I wasn’t close enough,” answered Oliver, truthfully.
“Didn’t I see you chasing the chief on yore mule?” invited Sol. “Kit took one chief an’ you took t’other.”
“Haw! Haw!” roared Sol, and chuckled through his beard. “What war the matter?”
“Haw! Haw!” roared Sol. “Guess mebbe you war.” Then he sobered. “You fetched yore cavvy in, though, I hear tell.”
“But you come in behind an’ not ahead, jest the same,” asserted Sol. “That war right. Warn’t ye afraid the Injuns’d get ye, ’fore you war forted?”
“That’s right, that’s right,” said Sol. “You corralled yore cavvy fust, an’ then you crawled under the wagon. Don’t blame ye for being afraid. Only a fool’s never afraid. Being afraid doesn’t make anybody a coward. I ’spec’ you thought us trappers war afraid, too, when we crawled into the wagons, ’fore you crawled under one.”
“We warn’t; not this time. But I reckon we’ve all been afraid, many another time. This time we crawled into the wagons so the Injuns wouldn’t see us. If the Injuns spied Kit Carson men riding with a wagon-train they’d never attack, you bet. These Southwest Injuns know us Kit Carson men by sight, now. An’ you jest say ‘Kit Carson’ to ’em, an’ out comes the peace-pipe mighty quick. They can depend on Kit to fight ’em if they’re bound to fight, or to talk straight with ’em if they want to talk straight. He air a bad enemy, an’ he air a best friend. He shoots plumb centre, with both tongue an’ rifle.”